


SNAFU

by GuileandGall



Series: Free To Be [32]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Angst, F/M, Near Death Experiences, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 06:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9644408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: Finding a new home for humanity after the invasion of the Zin and the destruction of Earth can be exhausting. These explorations also hold the potential for hidden and unpredictable dangers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this Remy/Matt prompt—First time lost/stranded/broken down somewhere together—sent by @Chyrstis in May of 2105.

 

**SNAFU**

**-1-**

From the shuttle, Matt monitored the feed from the boss’ armor cam. So far, the planet seemed completely deserted. The heat signatures the scanner picked up turned out to be just a large pack of carnivores. He studied the stills he’d taken from her encounter with the beasts. They looked like a weird cross between a naked mole rat, a dire wolf, and an octopus. They even had beaks.

He shivered again. An alarm sounding pulled his attention back to the panel.

“You’re going to want to pick up the pace,” he said, tapping the comms.

Her breathing came in pants before Remy spoke. “Next planet, you’re doing the recon, smart ass.”

He smiled at the sound of her voice, playful and challenging. It sounded like she might just be smiling. “That storm’s moving in fast. If you don’t get a move on, we’re going to get stuck here.”

“Yeah, right,” she laughed brightly. A few choice sounds announced the roughness of the terrain she traversed on her return to the ship. “I’ve seen that movie Miller and it always ends with someone opening the shuttle door right before the couple climaxes.”

He didn’t key the mic again until his own laughter calmed. “This time it’s not a ploy to get you out of your space suit. Plus, most of the time I don’t need a ruse to get you naked.”

“Oh, really now. Are you suggesting I’m easy, Miller?”

“Not a chance.” _No_ , he thought, that would never be a word he used to describe Remy. She was like a Rubik’s cube missing half its colors. You never knew if the moves you were making were right, and even if they were, the puzzle remained unsolvable.

“Good,” she replied with a hint of mirth still in her tone. The next moment it was completely gone. “Contact Kinzie and have them set an intercept. If that storm’s moving on us, I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Agreed,” he replied, with just as much professionalism. He switched channels and raised the ship, or tried to.

His focus turned wholly to trying to figure out why he couldn’t get a no response from the mother ship. Multiple channels left him with the same lack of response and Matt resorted to attempting atmospheric scans. All the while, the storm front loomed, growing closer and more ominous with each passing moment. Brown clouds billowed at the base, beneath the weight of a heavy gray tower. Lightning slicked over the exterior, rocketing down to the planet’s surface throwing dirt and debris into the air.

**-2-**

Remy moved at a pace faster than a jog but slower than a run. Her eyes scanned the foliage as her telemetry guided her back the direction she came. Once she hit the tree line, she halted. The head of the storm reached high into the atmosphere rolling like an explosion. She stared in awe at the massive wall of cloud as lightning flashed within it, flashing brightly, and arced over the exterior. The rumble of thunder could be heard even though it was still a ways off.

She hadn’t seen a storm like that … maybe in forever. That storm did look bad. A part of her thought his suggestion might just be Matt being libidinous.

The flicker of her HUD pulled her back into reality. The alarm started her moving again. She tapped at the panel on her wrist as she sprinted for the ship. It just flickered in a mix of color and static as everything went silent, including the quiet, ever-present hiss of her life support system.

By the time, she landed against the side of the shuttle, she was gasping. It felt like she was trying to breathe underwater. Her hands fumbled at the panel frantically before the door opened. Matt stared at her with wide eyes, not realizing her distress.

Remy scrambled in and punched the panel to close the door. She didn’t wait for the lock to pressurize before she was pulling at the seals on her helmet. Her lungs burned as she choked down more carbon dioxide than oxygen.

Matt grabbed at her wrists and tried to stop her; she saw his mouth moving, but heard nothing between his helmet and her own. He looked as intent to keep her helmet on as she was to get it off. The combination of clumsy movements and oxygen deprivation left her head spinning. While he couldn’t fend her off for long, Matt managed to thwart her until the green light beamed. She threw the helmet off her head and gasped in a breath as she dropped to her hands and knees, coughing and gulping down more greedy breaths.

Matt’s own helmet rattled across the floor. “Remy! What the hell?”

“Don’t know,” she said between breaths.

He knelt next to her his hand on her back as he leaned over her, his other hand on the panel of her suit to inspect it. “Bloody hell. What happened?”

Her steely blue eyes shot to his. “No. Clue!”

Neither of them said anything for nearly a minute. As her breathing calmed, she sat back on her calves. Matt just stared at her, studying her.

“I hit the edge of the clearing,” she explained finally. “And the display in my helmet flickered. Then the suit just—” She shrugged and shook her head. “It’s like it just shut down or shorted out or something. The panel got all wonky, then it went silent.”

He didn’t even blink, just stood there for a moment. In the next his hands were on her face, his lips on hers. Leaving her breathless proved easier in her current state. Matt rested his forehead against hers, relief shining in his bright cyan eyes. “Let’s get you out of this. I’ll get us out of here.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

He hopped back behind the control panel and tapped at several buttons. “I haven’t been able to establish contact with the others.”

“What?” She froze.

Matt didn’t answer for quite a long time, so Remy, only half way out of her suit crossed to him. When she leaned on the back of his chair, he looked up at her, not even bothering to try to hide his distress. His mouth moved a few times as he looked at her but nothing came out.

“You know? If I hadn’t just nearly choked to death, I’d think you were trying to get in my pants.”

“I can’t get the engines to spool up, Rem.”

**-3-**

Her mouth tightened. Matt recognized the look. He’d seen it a few times since the Zin invasion and after. Without a word, she crossed to the rear of the ship and pulled off the rest of her malfunctioning suit. Turning in his chair, he watched her start pulling open cabinets.

The inventory finished quickly, and he could have told her exactly what she found. As he watched her, he calculated how much air was in the cabin and how long it would last them, then calculated the air in the other three suits. All told they’d have 38 hours of air, if this storm shut down the ship’s life support like it had her suit’s.

Of course, Matt really hoped the shielding on the ship could withstand whatever the storm might dish out. Though he also knew, that shouldn’t have happened to her suit. So, all bets seemed to be off.

“I’m thinking a day and a half,” Remy announced, breaking the silence.

“Little more,” Matt corrected.

“Set off the beacon. They might not be able to hear us, but maybe they’ll be able to pick up that signal.”

“Did your suit get damaged in that encounter with those … ?”

Remy shook her head. “No, managed to keep them from closing. When I shot the alpha, they seemed to circle it to protect it. They didn’t follow. Seemed like they chose to take care of their own over coming after me.”

“Then it was probably the storm. There is a lot of lightning flashing about out there. Perhaps there’s some interference. It’s the only thing that explains your suit and the radio.”

“And the engine,” she added.

“And that,” Matt agreed. He turned to the controls again, opening the panel and launching the distress beacon. The firing of its own small engine gave him a sense of hope. As the sound faded, he really wanted to believe that the launch went off without a hitch. He watched the monitors, following the trajectory into the clouds. A little bit of him, the pessimistic part, wondered if it would make it above the fast-moving front unscathed. If it would reach the high atmosphere and do what they couldn’t on the ground—signal the rest of the crew.

 _It_ _’s the only way_ …

The weight of her hand on his shoulder, pulled his attention away from the panel. “It’ll be fine.”

He wanted to believe her.

“They know our operational window. That’s why we set the damn things,” she reminded him as she fell into the chair beside his. She propped her foot on the arm of his chair and started to rock it back and forth. “In six hours, they’ll be on top of us.”

Logically, she was right. Matt had done it all by the book—sent their landing site coordinates and received confirmation that they were received correctly.

He tried to give her more than a half-hearted smile before he ran his fingernail over the ball of her foot. Remy pulled it away from him with a laugh.

“It surprises me that someone as tough as you is ticklish.” He let his eyes rake over her. The thin, skin-tight shorts and racerback sports top showed off the lean muscle that coiled around her petite frame. She told him once that dynamite came in small packages, and Remy McGinnis certainly seemed to be proof of that. She was a powerhouse—strong, smart, beautiful.

He still didn’t know how he was the one she chose.

Like she knew what he was thinking, she climbed out of her chair and curled up in his lap. Her kisses were soft, lingering on his lips as her fingers chased the line of his jaw. Matt draped his arm over her legs, his hand resting on and pulling at her back to get and keep her close.

There was no other way he’d want to spend his last day and a half, if indeed it was that.


End file.
